Sialkot: where World Cup footballs are born

Manufacturing city of Pakistan's Punjab, Sialkot produces a significant portion of hand-stitched soccer balls used in international tournaments.

The center, where the official World Cup soccer balls are produced, is visited comfortably by motorized rickshaw.

The soccer ball factories of Sialkot, which supply teams and tournaments worldwide, can be visited through organized tours to observe traditional hand-stitching methods.

Just steps away, the Sialkot Fort, of ancient origins and rebuilt many times, dominates the city's historic center with its brick walls.

Moving toward the center you visit the birthplace of Muhammad Iqbal, poet and philosopher considered spiritually the father of modern Pakistan.

In the evening, Sialkot markets animate trade in surgical instruments, another historic manufacturing specialty of the city.

Sialkot produces approximately one third of all hand-stitched soccer balls exported worldwide, a craft industry employing tens of thousands of skilled workers in the city.

Muhammad Iqbal, a poet and philosopher born in Sialkot in 1877, is considered the spiritual father of Pakistan for having first formulated the idea of a separate state for the Muslims of the Indian subcontinent.